From: "World Chess Championship", INTERNET:newsletter@mark-weeks.com Date: 99/12/15, 08:43 Re: Chess History on the Web (1999 no.3) The next review, following the Chess History bookmarks, is for 'On the Square' by John S. Hilbert and other columnists. The home page, a table of contents for the columns, is at... http://correspondencechess.com/campbell/monthly.htm. ...Hilbert is one of more than a dozen 'On the Square' columnists. Other frequent contributors are J. Franklin Campbell, Roy DeVault, & John P. McCumiskey. Many 'On the Square' columns are about correspondence chess, because the column is a feature of the 'Campbell Report - Correspondence Chess' at... http://correspondencechess.com/campbell/index.htm, ...which is in turn a feature of 'Correspondence Chess.com' by John Knudsen. The main site includes a lively message board for discussions related to correspondence chess. When the bookmark was first added by another member of the Chess History discussion group, Hilbert's name was specifically mentioned. I'll respect that original reference by restricting this review to Hilbert, who has indeed authored more 'On the Square' columns than have the other regular columnists. This allows me to mention a few other Hilbert pages on the Web. Who is John S. Hilbert? A quick search of the Web shows that he is the author of two recent books published by Caissa Editions -- 'Buffalo 1901 and 1894 Chess Tournaments' (1996) & 'Napier: The Forgotten Chessmaster' (1997). Reviews of both books are also on the Web -- 'Buffalo' may be found at... - http://www.chessmail.com/books/wicbk_11.htm#bk11_12 (1 paragraph) - http://www.chesscafe.com/text/buffalo.txt ... while reviews of 'Napier' are at... - http://www.chessdigest.com/catalog/biographies/bios2.html (1 paragraph) - http://www.chesscafe.com/text/napier.txt - http://www.insidechess.com/silman/silnap.html A few 'On the Square' columns lead with a biography of Hilbert. There we learn that, in addition to being the author of the two books, 'he also edits a revived journal of chess history, "Lasker & His Contemporaries"', and is working on at least two other books. Hilbert also writes frequently for Chess Archaeology (http://www.chessarch.com/arch.shtml), which I covered in the second of these site reviews. Six articles may be found on the pages at... http://www.chessarch.com/library/previous.shtml & http://www.chessarch.com/excavations/excavations.shtml. ...With one exception, the articles are not copies of the 'On the Square' material, although they exhibit many of the same qualities. Hilbert's interest in chess history centers on the turn of the century, particularly in the Western New York & Eastern Great Lakes regions of the United States. His approach to chess history is not to compile lists or to create references. He assumes that his readers already know the great players, the great tournaments, & the great games. He builds on this to explore the lesser known players, tournament, & games. His essays are about relatively obscure chess personalities -- George Mackenzie (1837-1891), George Thornton (1851-1920), Emil Kemeny (1860-1925), Mordecai Morgan (1862-1932?), William Napier (1881-1952). Like other chess historians, Hilbert fills his essays with stories, games, & annotations. Unlike most other historians, he also describes the methods & concerns which are peculiar to his avocation. One can easily picture him leafing through yellowing chess columns which were clipped long ago from 19th century newspapers & carefully arranged in graying scrapbooks; or playing the moves of a game between two unknown 19th century players, neither of whom is likely to be honored with a game file at the UPitt archives; or spending an entire afternoon in a rural library searching for an overlooked tournament report, game score, or biographical detail. In 'Stalking the Blue-Eyed Chess Score', he describes the intellectual pleasure in pursuing forgotten games of the great masters. 'And so, from games played by a world champion to the correspondence chess efforts of local enthusiasts, the stalking of historic chess game scores offers hours and hours of entertainment for the person with persistence, time, and interest.' In 'Chess Columns: Now and Then', he compares a typical modern newspaper chess column to its predecessor of a century ago. He notes an unfavorable trend, but concludes on a note of optimism, 'After all, where are you reading this column? Yes, the future in all likelihood does not bode well for detailed chess coverage reappearing in the daily print press. Perhaps the continued growth of Internet chess coverage will offer readers the same detail, delight, and wonder as did the chess columns of so long ago.' In a negative review of 'Emanuel Lasker' by Egon Varnusz, he calls the book a 'dangerous disaster' and then asks, 'How can a chess book dealing with games played approximately one hundred years ago be considered "dangerous"? And to whom?'. He explains, 'The book appears reasonably well constructed, [...] and thus suggests to the unwary reader that it stands as a legitimate attempt to convey useful information about one of the greatest chess players ever to play the game. [...] This work, clearly, is not the best, nor even an adequate, book on Emanuel Lasker.' In 'To Checkmate the Kaiser', he describes correspondence chess at the end of the First World War. 'Chess players and their families are as patriotic as anyone else. Just because we prefer to fight our battles within the confines of sixty-four squares doesn't mean we forget the larger playing board of world history.' In 'Capablanca in Cleveland', he details the search for forgotten games of the Cuban grandmaster. 'It is impossible to speculate how many more such games could be unearthed were interested readers who either visit or live in or near cities around the United States, and elsewhere, willing to spend an afternoon examining the local newspaper microfilm available in public libraries.' In 'Napier: The Search Continues', he describes contacts with other chess historians. 'One of the beauties of writing and publishing material on historical chess figures is that one quickly learns there is a small, but devoted, coterie of chess historians and aficionados quite willing to help elucidate, and at times correct, details concerning the great players of our game.' If you are interested in chess history, but don't know how to contribute, take Hilbert's hint. In every corner of the world, chess is played & has a history. Much of that history is slowly being forgotten and risks being lost forever. In Hilbert's words, 'While not every "find" will lead to your name being mentioned in the history books, that really isn't the point. My greatest pleasure from the experience was knowing that, no matter in how small a fashion, I had added to the sum total of our shared chess past, and that my efforts might one day give pleasure to someone else who plays over those games. And the same pleasure is mine -- and can be yours -- every time a small bit of chess history is unearthed.' [from 'Stalking the Blue-Eyed Chess Score']. Bye for now, Mark Weeks